The Children
by Anni Re
Summary: Sonja and Lucian's children are sent by an ancient order of beings who rule a place called The Shadowlands in hopes of ending the war and save their parents, but Viktor may not be this pair's only problem. T for safety. Please Read! COMPLETE!
1. Council

The Children

By Anni Re

Chapter One: Council

In the sanctum of Arrith Moira the Heirarchy sat in their silver hall sitting, thinking. Not a sound came from their pale, thin lips, their colorless pupils looking out through the many glassless windows onto the realm of The Shadowlands.

"Talia," said a woman sitting in a high chair on the northwestern side of the room. Her pale face still faced forward, non-indicating to whom she was speaking as she continued to speak with her expressionless, bell-like voice, "the immortals of the world are becoming restless. The vampires have upset the scale and now the lycans contest their power." Smoothly she turned her head towards whom she was speaking.

Talia sat in the most northern part of the circular room. His almost transparent, blonde hair falling in wisps over his colorless eyes, now closed. His long, spiderlike fingers were lace together upon which his chin was rested. "Thank you, Sharine, for that observation. I too have sensed the Moon Children's turmoil, and the oppressiveness of the ones who hold them…these Elders." He opened his eyes and the light in the room emphasized the glass like color of his eyes. "Constance," he said unblinkingly staring ahead, "your gaze intrigues me."

"I see the shadows of those who cross to this land." said a smaller, fragile looking woman, the only one on the room standing, staring out a window at, to everyone else, an empty plain. "More will come, and quickly."

"We must intervene! We cannot stand idly by whilst our children massacre themselves and shackle themselves to this place. We must force a balance!"

"Urios, do you know what you are saying?" said another man rising from his seat. "No world can play with the power of another. Ours is to foreign to theirs. We could inadvertently destroy all of them, or unlink the chain of time."

"A time, Darrius, if left unaltered will result in their utter destruction!" said Urios his voice rising as well as his body from his chair.

Darrius was about to speak again. "Peace, brothers," said Sharine her eyes closed, her forehead drawn into a grimace. There was silence amongst the five for a moment before Sharine opened her eyes and turned towards Talia whose eyes were again closed, in the same position save for the tension in the unseen lines on his face.

"We will intervene," he said quietly, "Urios is right. We cannot abandon the world which we were once a part of, nor our family which is now fractured and fighting." He paused, stretched his fingers and returned them to the same position. "But…Darrius is also right. Our power is not fabricated for our former world, just like their strengths cannot survive in ours." He opened his eyes and looked for a moment at each of the four people with him in the room. "We must intervene…but not one of us, from us rather." He moved leaning back in his chair, the elbow of his slender arm resting on the pale, alabaster, chair arm, his chin resting in the crook between his thumb and forefinger.

"What do you have in mind?" asked Constance, tearing her expressionless gaze away from the window.

"An unborn perhaps," Talia mused his face turned away from the circle. Then his colorless eyes widened and a look of pleasant surprise crossed his face. "Or two," he said, sounding suddenly pleased with himself. His face settled back to its passive state but his eyes still had a light to them, as if he had a rush of thought. Suddenly his eyes flickered to the center of the room. "Children."

Sharine, Constance, Urios, and Darrius whipped their heads towards the center of the room where two people had materialized while they were focused on Talia.

The pair in the center were alarmingly different from the five that surrounded them. Their hair was dark and thick, there skin, though pale, was still much darker than the counterparts' translucent skin, and most importantly their eyes held color, a sign of the other world. "Hierarchy," the pair answered, reverently bowing their heads.

Talia rose for the first time in the council and walked smoothly, almost as if her were floating towards the pair. "We have a proposition for you…"

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Don't write me off just yet, you'll see familiar faces in the next chapter :)


	2. Strangers

Since I forgot to do this Ch 1: I don't own Underworld... much to my displeasure. This is for the entire story.

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Chapter Two: Strangers

The castle was silent, almost death like, as the sun fled from the sky, its red skin bleeding shadows onto the world before it fell behind the mountains in the distance pulling with him all that remained of the light. Only then did the castle stir.

Her bed was soft and the night was young so Sonja buried deeper into the folds, her kneading into the firs. She opened her electric blue eyes for a moment, eyes that seemed to unnaturally stand out against her pale, flawless face, instinctively knowing the sun had left the world. Her eyes darkened from their electric shade before she closed them again, turning over to return to her sleep, he raven hair wrapping around her elegant neck.

Sonja's ears, even in her light slumber, pricked up to the creaky herald of the door being opened. "Not now Luka…five more minutes."

The person who had opened the door made no sound of acknowledging that they had heard or that they were leaving. Sonja listed intently, still unwilling to open her eyes and leave her slumber, but heard nothing. Suddenly she felt the tips of fingers run across her bare shoulder. Large, coarse fingers, but they were warm and gentle. Slowly, the tips ran over her shoulder to the pace of her breathing. After a minute, most of the fingers withdrew and one drew harder than before a long, serpentine S into her skin. The pressure of the finger on her skin made her gasp. The tip stopped then moved upwards towards her neck, adding the removed fingers and the equally as rough palm of a hand. The hand rested at the base of the neck where it met the left shoulder. The thumb was barely resting on the nape of her neck the rest wrapping around her throat in a possessive…animalistic…way.

Sonja's eyes snapped open and in the same instant the hand vanished. She rose up to a sitting position and looked around the room. "Lucian…" she whispered.

The door opened again, more quickly this time and Luka walked in, stepping just beyond the threshold. "Milady," she said but she paused, a look of concern passing a shadow over her face as she looked at Sonja sitting amidst the coverings on her bed looking slowly around but having the look on her face that she was not really seeing what she was looking at, "…what is it."

Sonja didn't look at Luka, but continued to stare blankly around her darkened room. "Nothing," she said softly, absentmindedly reaching back to stroke the invisible S she was marked with.

Sonja got dressed quickly, intent on her purpose, and after Luka had long since left raced towards the door. What was on the other side of the door made he brake to an abrupt halt. "Father," she said slightly flustered.

Viktor smirked slightly as if her were pleased that he had startled his daughter. "My child," he said in his smooth, slightly raspy voice. He cupped Sonja's face and looked into her eyes. "Come," he said after a beat, pulling his dark robbed arms back to his sides. "You and I have business with the Council."

"The nobles," she moaned in her thoughts, an unnecessary extortion that would take up her entire evening. Sonja spun on her heel and walked back into her room scanning for anything, and doing some quick thinking. "In a moment, father," she called to him her keen eyes still searching. "I have some business to attend to first."

Viktor's eyes sharpened with annoyance at his daughter's back. "With whom," he said tersely.

"The blacksmith," Sonja responded lightly, hopefully innocently.

"Lucian," Viktor supplied the smallest glimmer of pride in his voice.

Sonja only nodded, not daring to speak.

"And what business must you attend with him," he asked.

At that moment Sonja spied her sword across the room, and wit it a small window of opportunity. Making sure her body obstructed Viktor's view, she drew out her sword from its sheath and with her other hand folded the metal into small, but noticeable dents near the hilt, looking as if something had tried to bite it. "This," she said, turning and walking towards him again, the hilt of the sword in one palm, the tip of it in the other. She angled the injured blade towards his face for his inspection.

Viktor examined the metal, running a thin, slightly nailed finger into each of the dents. "I'll have someone care for this for you," he said, placing his hand along side hers on the hilt.

"Father," said Sonja gently but with objection, pulling the sword close to her bosom. "I must insist. Surely you do not want to send me out to collect the nobles with a faulty blade, or worse, a blade that I'm unaware is faulty."

Viktor looked from the blade to his daughter's face before he relinquished his hold on the hilt and stepped to the side so she could pass.

She nodded his head in his direction breezing past him. As she walked she heard his voice echo through the cavernous hall. "Make haste, Sonja, some of the humans are already here and I would have them leave presently.

The blacksmith's forge for the longest time held a plethora of Sonja's favorite scents; brimstone, molten metal, and of course…his scent. "Blacksmith," she called into the din.

Lucian emerged from the mesh of metal and machinery, covered in soot and sweat, but bright eyes smiling upon seeing her face. "Milady," he said bowing to her, "to what do I owe this unexpected honor?"

"The honor of my sword," she answered stepping forward and handing it to him.

Lucian took it and held it up to the light of the moon and, like Viktor before him, examined the sword running his fingers of the imperfections. "I'll see what I can do," he said and Sonja flowed him into his domain.

Sonja stood a few inches behind Lucian as he set to work on her weapon. She loved to watch how his muscles rippled underneath his bronzed skin whilst he pounded the indentions from the metal, how his sweat fell down his neck from he intense heat, how his dark eyes flashed in the firelight. "Lucian," she said quietly, "were you in my room this evening?"

The ends of Lucian's lips turned up ever so slightly before settling back into indifference. "Maybe," he said, but Sonja caught the tone in his voice.

Sonja pursed her lips, the little girl with a crush in her worming its way to the surface, mingling the fully adult lover. Sonja approached Lucian too quickly for him to notice. Sonja wrapped her left arm around his waist, her fingers tracing his chiseled abdomen through his shirt. Her other arm rested on his right forearm, staying its movements. She noticed with satisfaction his clenched fist. Sonja lightly touched her nose to the middle of his back and drew it up his spine, noting how it grew rigid, to his left shoulder. Sonja, with the flat of her tongue instead of the tip of her nose, crossed his shoulder to his neck; and with the tip of her tongue carved an L into his pumping jugular underneath his collar, the constant reminder of the danger of what they were, what they were doing. "That was for this evening," she breathed into his ear.

Lucian gasped and spun around grabbing her wrists. Lucian guided her hands up around his neck, lacing her fingers together. He then released her hands and placed them around her waist. They did not kiss, but rather pressed their heads together, eyes closed, just enjoying the sense of touch, their slightly open mouths inhaling the others essence.

"Milady!"

The pair broke apart as quickly as they went together, and a second later Tanis came into the forge. "Milady," he said, addressing Sonja, completely ignoring the lycan a few inches away. "Your father is insistent you come with me now."

"But, my-" protested Sonja.

"It is finished," interrupted Lucian, producing the flawless blade, eyes downcast, mutely handing into to Sonja.

Sonja quickly but reluctantly fell into her act. "It's perfect, blacksmith, as always."

Lucian smiled at the ground. "You spoil me, milady."

"True indeed," said Tanis. "Now come, we must hurry."

Tanis exited the building, two sets of eyes watching his back before Sonja and Lucian both turned to formally face each other.

"Blacksmith," said Sonja formally.

Lucian raised his head, "Milady."

Both stared at each other wistfully, mournfully, before Sonja turned to follow Tanis. Lucian watched Sonja until she was out of sight before collapsing against the wall, his fingers slipping underneath his collar, exhaling slowly and sharply through his mouth with eyes pressed closed.

Viktor glared daggers and his daughter when Tanis threw open the doors for her and continued to do so as she walked down the chamber and to her seat at his right hand. Viktor turned his head to continue to glare at her when she sat down but she did not return his gaze. Viktor turned his head forward and collected himself. He raised his hand towards the door. "Bring them forward," he commanded.

The door was opened again and the humans shuffled into the Council hall bringing with them their offerings of silver to their protector.

When twenty chests of silver were at Viktor's feet, he bestowed one of his rare smiles that was not given to his daughter. "You have done well," he announced to his guests, "and have insured my continued protection of you and your lands from the beasts that terrorize them." It was then that Viktor picked up the sounds of hushed voices and out of the corner of his eyes saw a cluster of his guests. "I do not allow whispering in front of me," he said sharply.

The entire group jumped and one man in the front timidly stepped forward. "My apologies, my lord. We were just discussing amongst ourselves if we…if we saw the same thing on the road coming here."

"Thing?" replied Viktor mildly interested.

"Creatures, my lord, that none of us have ever seen before.

"Creatures. As in…more than one?"

"Yes, my lord. There were two of them, by the road, watching us. They wore cloaks, strange silvery cloaks; none of could see anything but their faces. They had an odd color to their skin. I can't describe it, like it was changing. And their eyes, blacker than midnight."

Viktor stared at the group, his face impassive. "We will look into this matter," he said speaking slower than usual. "Go now," he said indicating to his guests, "all of you," indicating to his fellow council members.

They all filed out of the room with a flick of his hand, leaving Viktor alone in the chamber to ponder over these black-eyed strangers in his woods.

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Next chapter you finally get to meet them! P.S how did you like my depiction of Sonja and Lucian. Come on people I'm giving you a prompt for a review. Throw me a bone! Pretty please.


	3. Encounter

Chapter Three: Encounter

The sun had risen and the nobles departed and still Viktor sat alone in his hall with his conquest of silver pondering over these creatures his protectorates had seen on their journey. They were not wild lycans, that much he was certain. Yet still he could not discern whether hey were friend or enemy. His thoughts turned to Lucian; the first of the domesticated breed. Had another branch evolved form the original species…and he failed to notice? Such a thought deeply troubled him.

Viktor heard the soft rapping of heeled shoes against the stone as Sonja walked into the room. She didn't acknowledge him, he didn't acknowledge her while she glided over to the chests and ran her immaculately tipped nails over the grainy wood of the closest one.

"You were late," said Viktor pointedly still not looking at her nor she at him.

"My apologies, Father," said Sonja moving her hand over to the next chest.

"Your absences," he said, firmly looking at Sonja's tuned away face, "are becoming most taxing in me being able to keep you your council seat."

"It won't happen again," said Sonja submissively, but Viktor caught the color of indifference in her voice.

"See to it," he said and that was the end of it, both knew that the other would never yield if they argued.

After a while Sonja looked up at her father. "Five are missing," she said.

Viktor nodded and stood. He walked towards the closest chest to him and opened it. He dipped his hand into the silver, scooped it up into his palm and let it fall back into the chest, the shining pieces clattering against each other in a flurry of sharp sounds. "I will send someone out tomorrow night to escort them her if they arrive," he said, repeating the motion.

"I will go," said Sonja.

"No."

"Father!"

"I will send another Deathdealer for the humans."

"Like who? Who is better than me?"

Viktor at last lost his temper, which was building all night. He clutched the palm full of silver into a fist and then threw it at the lid of the chest, the pieces pulverized into powder, the force of the blow knocking the lid shut with a clang. "You will _not _go beyond the wall," he hissed.

Sonja scowled at him.

It is time for you to accept your responsibilities in this coven, and to learn your place in it." Viktor's granite fingers flashed out and grasped Sonja's chin and pulled it up, leaning his face a hair's breath away from hers. "Below me."

The only sound in the room was the fading echo of Viktor's voice. Sonja stared at her father for a moment before pulling sharply away.

Viktor's fingers stayed exactly where they were when her chin was in his grasp. He reached out and ran them through a lock of Sonja's hair. "I'm sorry, my child," he said in a much softer tone, "there is simply no other way, anymore."

Sonja still stared at him, not speaking. Once again Sonja pulled away from his hand. "Father," she said with a tight formality, turned sharply and purposefully walked out the door.

Viktor sighed a long sigh and returned to his elegant chair.

Night came to the land, and the darkness aided Sonja's concealment as she flew to the stables to retrieve a horse. Finding one that would get her to the gate fast, she sought out its tack. Just as soon as she placed the saddle on its back she sensed motion behind her.

"Sonja?" She turned and saw Lucian who had just walked through he door, a look of mild surprise on his face.

"Lucian," she breathed, relieved that it was he and not someone else. "What are you doing here?"

Lucian held up a pair of horseshoes and a fist full of nails. "Shoeing," he said simply. He placed down what he carried on the ground and walked towards his secret love. "What are you doing here?"

Sonja's face soured and she continued to work more quickly.

Lucian breathed out sharply, knowing, even without saying, what she intended to do. "Your father told you you were not to go out, Sonja."

"Since when did that stop me before?" she said jokingly, unconcerned about how Lucian had heard about she and her father's argument.

Lucian paused for a moment, staring at her. "What if I don't want you to go, would that stop you?"

Sonja stopped her work with a jerk and turned to him. "What?" Her face softened when she saw how uncertainly Lucian stood before her, how distraught his face was drawn, and trying desperately to be concealed.

Lucia leaned forward, cupping Sonja's face in his grizzled hands, resting his forehead, knotted up with his troubling, on her smooth one. He closed his eyes wearily breathing her in. "It is hard enough," he said, "every night to watch you leave, knowing that I can't follow with wild lycans in the woods. But now, with these…other things…"

"Who told you about them?" said Sonja cutting him off.

Lucian tensed suddenly and his eyes flew open. "Our…watchmen," he spat the word like a bad taste, "have instructed us to watch for creatures with strange skin and dark eyes.

Sonja paused for a moment, considering his words. The watchmen's orders come form her father. Her father was concerned about theses things presence. She chuckled to herself mentally. "It was dark, the humans may not have seen what they thought they saw. Besides, they are a superstitious lot."

Lucian broke out into a gruff laugh, pulling his face away. "Some superstitions are based on truth," he said, two of his fingers indicating to him and her.

Sonja laughed as well and pulled farther away from Lucian, towards the horse. "I'll be back by morning, my love," she said casually at the end of her laugh and in one smooth motion mounted the horse.

Lucian reacted fast, and before Sonja had even gone halfway through the door of the stables Lucian grabbed the horse's bridle and pulled it to a stop. He looked up at Sonja, his face pleading once again. "Why are you doing this?"

Sonja's face flickered in her determination at the sound of his voice, but her resolve steeled itself when she reached out for his neck. "You of all people should know why," she said quietly. With one finger hooked under it, she tugged on his collar. Nothing more needed to be said.

Lucian stood deliberating with himself whether her should disagree with her and deny his own self, or agree with her and let her go. Slowly, reluctantly, he released his grip on the bridle.

"I love you," she whispered tenderly, her words trying to be a balm on the wound of her parting.

Lucian grasped the hand that still touched his shackle and kissed it fiercely, passionately. "Be safe," he said. And before he, or anyone else, had acknowledged it, Sonja had already passed through the gates.

Sonja rode many miles away, far from the view of her home, and waited by the wooded path listening for the sound of wagon wheels. Sonja dropped the reigns onto the neck of her horse and relaxed in the saddle. She closed her eyes and allowed her sensed to become sharper, fanning out form her to take in the sounds and smells of the night.

Suddenly her horse stirred from its languid position. Its body tensed, heart pounding, suddenly fearful of something in the woods.

As the horse continued to whine and paw the ground anxiously, Sonja, her senses still sharp, tried to settle the animal while scanning with her now electric blue eyes the surroundings.

Her eyes stopped as well as her body when she picked out the obsidian eyes watching her from the brush.

The black eyes were a few yards away, yet even in the darkness they seemed to shine making them easy to pick out. But only the eyes however, the rest of the body remained hidden in the darkness. Both Sonja and the horse waited with baited breath yet the creature did not move.

Sonja stared wide-eyed at it, desperately trying to read the emotion on the eyes, but since they were all black she could not. Then in the silence, the sound of a limb breaking a stick on the ground cut through the air as the dark eyes shifted forward.

That was all that the horse could stand and with a shrill cry it reared and bolted.

Sonja tried to calm the horse but it did no good, driven beyond reason by fear. All Sonja could do was hold onto its neck pressing her body into the rolling back to ease the ride and let it run. She kept her eyes open as she clung to the speeding beast yet did not see the shiny, dark eyes again. She did, however, hear the loping footfalls of a pair of feet, easily keeping up with them.

Sonja and her steed saw a clearing up ahead and they dashed to it crashing through a dense thicket in the process. A snarling sound erupted from he greenery as they trampled through it, deep and dangerous. Sonja straightened up on her horse instantly and she saw it. Leaping from the thicket it launched, it bluish, almost bruise colored skin gleamed in the pale moonlight. It's muscles stretched across its lean body and its dark hair followed behind it in a tangled snarl. Its dark eyes flashed with its hidden fire and its white teeth were bared towards her as it fell into the horse's path. The creature rolled onto its haunches diagonally from the animal and snarled, lips drawn in a tight grimace. The horse reared, shoes flashing, foam forming at the mouth. Sonja gripped its mane and braced herself.

The creature extended its ebony black claws and struck out at the animals exposed chest creating five gashes in its flesh. The force of the blow knocked the animal over. The saddle tipped and Sonja gripped the saddle her nails digging into the leather but she fell with it and was pinned between the horses writhing body and the clod hard ground. Their attacker skittered between the horse's flailing legs and ran off in a different direction leaving the pair alone in the clearing.

Sonja as she struggled to pull herself out, in the back of her mind recounted the encounter again and again, amazed that the attack had not gone further when it had felled them so easily. She recalled its blue skin and dark eyes and knew that that was what the humans spoke of. It did not wear the strange cloaks mentioned but it did have a figure of a human…she thought. Suddenly she recalled that it looked more animal when it attacked them. She dismissed all these thoughts from her mind when she heard another sound.

The horse, who had still not regained its feet, stilled for a second and then continued to thrash around with all the more fervor, driving Sonja deeper into the dirt as the footfalls grew faster and faster.

"Easy, easy!" a voice cried. She almost wept in relief that it was not another one. Out of the corner of her eye she saw a pale hand snake around the thrashing animal's neck attempting to guide the creature off of its rider.

But the horse would not be calmed and screamed ever louder, despite the soothing tone of the voice and the gentle hand on its hide. Using its own strength of momentum it heaved itself off the ground and blindly sprinted away from both of them into the night.

Sonja looked up at her rescuer who had appeared quite literally out of nowhere. It was a man. He was tall and thin but she saw the well-toned muscles through his clothing. His skin was pale and his dark hair fell in his eyes. His very strange eyes, an odd hazel color that combined a silvery grey and a very dark green, but stranger than that they seemed to be like the were coated with a film of glass. The stranger pushed his hair away from his eyes. "What happened?" he asked.

Sonja was trying to catch her breath from being crushed. After trying and failing a few times she managed to choke out. "It…some…something…attacked me."

Sonja jumped when she heard the swift sound of running. Subtly she tried to back away from the sound, still under the man's scrutiny.

"What happened," called out another, much higher voice.

"Something attacked her," said the man his eyes still trained on Sonja. Smoothly he turned his head towards whom he was speaking with.

"Yes," said the other. "I saw it, she seems to have merely startled it. It was no threat to me.

Both the strangers' heads turned at the sound of Sonja's gasp. Her face a palled to rival a sheet of paper her eyes trained to the lightened horizon if the sky.

"Dawn is coming," said the other voice. Sonja was barely aware of the other person walking forward until they place a small hand on her shoulder. She turned and saw a young woman. Her structure was the exact same as the other, right down to the eyes, yet she seemed the more congenial of the two. "You will stay with us for the day." She said pleasantly, as if it were already decided. She held out her small hand and with it Sonja hauled herself to her feet.

Lucian stared at the inevitable dawn, trying to will it off for a few more moments. He was the one who had found the horse bleeding and the saddle broken, and now it was he who was the last lycan to be returned to its cell for the daylight hours. Three watchmen surrounded him driving him back, pressing silver rods into his chest. But Lucian ignored the pain and stared at the sun that to his horror had just risen over the horizon. Lucian suddenly heard a world that was devoid of all sound, save Sonja's screaming as the rising sun burned her alive. Lucian's insides were screaming, his very soul was screaming, but the only sound he could make was a strangled whisper before he was at last driven down below. "No…"

Viktor too watched the rising of the sun from the top of the castle, his eyes periodically scanning the great plain. The light drew dangerously close to his sensitive skin.

"My lord," cried one of the guards hiding in the shadows. "My lord, the sun!"

Viktor looked up at the orb in the sky and his body shudder long and hard before he drew himself into the dark sanctuary of his halls.

Sonja slept most of the day hidden under a thick blanket in the farthest corner of a cave. However when she was not sleeping her carefully peeled back her shield and watched her saviors. They did little but sit, slowly pace about or talk in whispers to each other or else remain silent. In the light the looked even more alike, and even more unlike anything she had ever seen. Their skin too had a glass like sheen to it. Their eyes were wide and they never seemed to blink that often. All their movements were slow, but unnaturally graceful, even their voice. Their cloths were loose hanging on their bodies, like robes, and like everything else about them, it glowed.

Sonja snapped out of her thoughts when she sensed the last of the light leave for the day. Not a moment later the girl approached her. "My brother and I will accompany to your home."

They moved quickly, quicker than Sonja would have given credit for and in little to no time they had crossed the plains and the gates were opened before the trio with triumphant fanfare. People cried out Sonja's name, temporarily ignoring the two that accompanied her, crowding around to see her. Sonja paid them no mind, seeking out only one face. When she saw that face by the forge a few feet away and their eyes met, Lucian had to hold onto the wooden support beam to keep from collapsing.

Viktor met them in the courtyard. The father stared at his daughter for a moment before his rigidity collapsed and he swept his child into his arms and kissed her on the forehead. Viktor moved Sonja to his side, still keeping a firm grip on her waist, and turned his attention to her travel companions. "Thank you," he said, "for saving my daughter's life."

"On the contrary," said the man stepping forward, "we would like to thank her for needing to be saved, otherwise, we would have not found our way here."

"And what is your business here?" asked Viktor.

"We only wish for a place to stay."

Viktor smiled and nodded in his consent. "What are your names, children?"

The woman spoke this time. "Illa and Antony, my lord."

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Illa is pronounced like bella except with a long I sound like in icecream


	4. Discord

Chapter Four: Discord

Arrith Moira was silent, but even more silent than was customary. The Hierarchy was no longer thinking, they were watching. Talia sat in his chair; his clear eyes closed, seemingly asleep, the tips of his pale fingers pressed together. "Constance," he breathed and his eyes opened staring straight ahead. "What do you see from your window?" He turned his head ever so slowly, ever so smoothly, towards the being that was Constance.

Constance did not return his gaze, her wide eyes ever gazing out on the fields below and beyond her. She tilted her head, almost unnoticeably towards the horizon. "Illa and Antony have reached Viktor's coven," she whispered.

"And they have been welcomed by him," continued Sharine from her own chair her, eyes still closed.

Talia gave a half smile to the group. "Good," he closed his eyes again and bowed his head slightly. "This is very good. Perhaps they will become acquainted with Sonja and Lucian."

"Sonja," a stunned voice accused.

Talia sighed to himself and turned his head towards Urios before opening his eyes.

"Viktor's daughter Sonja, is that whom you mean?" continued Urios. He was standing before his statement was finished.

Talia nodded, "Their mother Sonja, as well, Urios. Your guess was correct."

"What insanity is this?!" Urios shouted, his echoing voice causing everyone to flinch.

"Peace, Urios," Darrius beseeched from across the room. "Talia has done no wrong. We all were present when the children were given their task. They only know of Viktor, and what Viktor will do. They know nothing of their parents; for, like you, we acknowledged the possibilities of that knowledge."

Yet Urios was not pacified. Swiftly, like a gale, he blew up to Tala's side. Talia's head was stilled turned in the direction of where Urios had been seconds before. "Is there a possibility," he hissed into Talia's ear, "that they might find each other, children and parents?"

Talia closed his eyes and Urios watched him, Darrius watched Urios, and Constance watched what she saw through her window. "There will always be a possibility," he murmured, "of one pair finding the other, so long as both are in the same world."

Darrius spoke up, "If you failed to recognize the connections, then that is your misfortune. You sent them as much as we did."

"Darrius," Talia whispered patronizingly. He opened his eyes and turned his head to speak directly at him, "Speak kindly to Urios. He above all others knows our purpose with the children in that world. Urios," Talia's eyes moved to him without him moving his head, "fear not. Your purpose, our purpose, will be fulfilled. The children will mix with the coven, and all that that entails, and they will intervene, when they see fit, in order to end the war."

Urios was about to speak again. "Urios, brother," said a voice wearily.

Urios sharply turned his head towards Sharine who was sitting in her chair, eyes closed, her face not turned in his direction. Her head was tilted back against the back of her chair. "Cease this discord. It's such a disturbance."

Urios stared at her seething. He snapped his head back towards Talia who once again had his eyes closed, falling into the exact same position he had been in before the discussion even took place. He turned his eyes to Darrius who had not fallen into a meditative state but was not looking at him. Urios did not even bother to seek out Constance, for her gaze rarely left her window.

Urios exhaled sharply and began down the small staircase if three steps that lead to Talia's chair. He closed his eyes for the final step. He opened them a split second later the moment his foot made contact with not the floor of the council hall, but an annex far away from the other four.

Urios stood in the center of the bare windowless room. He closed his eyes slowly, deliberately, as if her were trying to force them shut, all the while remaining absolutely still.

Suddenly his eyes opened and not even the outlines of his glass colored pupils could be seen. All was clear, even the whites of his eyes. And his eyes glowed a strange silvery color in wispy waves.

"Tanis…" he spoke to the bare wall but his eyes looking as if he could see him. His voice was guttural, the lowest a voice could physically be. And yet to the listener his voice was nothing more than the faint whisper of a ghost. "I want you to watch them for me."

The response was almost incapable to be heard, since Tanis did not know how to speak across the worlds, but Urios' keen ears were still able to pick it up. "Yes, my lord."

* * *

I'm sorry this took longer than usual to update and that it is so short (chapters just dealing with these five foreseeably will be) but I had an ACT last weekend and my Muse shot herself in protest. But since a long weekend is up I will repay you for your wait.

Also Illa like eye and la as in "la a note to follow so"


	5. Conversations

Chapter Five: Conversations

A few weeks of clam nights passed and Illa and Antony had laced themselves into the society of the coven. Viktor paid them no mind, he was in fact delighted with their presence, not only for the fact of protecting his daughter during the daylight hours, but also for the novelty of their newness.

The two were a strange pair however, when they were whispered about in the cavernous halls of the coven's castle or deep underground in the lycans cells no one would deny that they had an aura about them. They kept to themselves mostly, wearing the strange, silvery clothes they came in, and speaking in whispers to each other. Although their speech was strange, if one spoke the other one didn't acknowledge the words. And strangest of all, they watched, watched absolutely everything with their wide, silvery green eyes that always seemed to have a glass film covering them.

Yet neither the coven of vampires nor the pack of lycans paid them any mind, and the duo did the same in return and for the weeks that passed they lived in their separate spheres. Which is why it was such a shock to Sonja when she was roused from her slumber one evening not by Luka, but by Illa.

Sonja heard the soft footsteps pattering across the stone floor of her room towards her. She turned towards it in her sleep and then opened her eyes. Illa was walking across the room, the tips her pale fingers running across the dark wood of the furniture. "Good evening," she said quietly, not looking at Sonja as she spoke but the moment after turned her head towards her, her piercing eyes staring at her.

Sonja jolted slightly at the unexpected person in her room. "You startled me," she stated rising from her bed and wrapping a dark robe around her body.

Illa, her eyes downcast to the floor, nodded, a small smile crossing her face. "That happens," she said just a quietly.

There was a moment of awkward silence between the two Sonja standing by her bed watching curiously the young woman silently gliding around her room. "Has your time here been pleasant?" Sonja asked.

"Yes," said Illa turning to face Sonja after completing her turn about the room, "very pleasant. Your father has been most generous with Antony and I."

"That is good," Sonja replied. There was silence once more. "Is there something you desire of me?" said Sonja again considering Illa was unwilling to break the silence.

Illa's face changed tone, she suddenly seemed much more…aware of Sonja's voice. It was almost looked as if she was waiting for this window. "Yes. I desire an engaging conversation with you."

Sonja was unsure if how to respond to that. She walked over to the window and leaned against it, careful to turn her face away from Illa, not knowing what direction this conversation would go. "Speak," she said bluntly.

Sonja felt Illa walk up behind her, felt those strange eyes of hers on her back. Illa spoke to her back. "I'm curious, what is your life like here? I have been to many places, and yet I have never seen lycans and vampires co-exist with each other. There must be much…tension in such an arrangement."

Sonja nodded, "My father would call it tension."

"By your father, you mean everyone involved, and it is more than just tension."

Sonja nodded again. "Yes; tense is a very...loose…word."

Sonja heard Illa take a step forward. "You don't seem tense."

Sonja turned away from the window to the young woman who was just inches away. "Listen, I-" she closed her mouth as if she was trying to word something.

"It's alright," said Illa lightly, flashing a small smile, "you can call me Illa."

"Illa," said Sonja, "it's," she turned back towards the window and looked out and down, to the ground, to a small building just beside the gate. She reached up and with one finger she lightly traced the forge of the blacksmith through the glass, "complicated."

"Obviously," said Illa. Her voice sounded suddenly deflated, resigned. "Good evening," she said in the same tone of voice she began the conversation with.

Sonja turned around to face her to find that Illa had in that motion had already left, as if she had never entered.

Lucian was alone in his forge, his muscled arm rising and falling upon the fire, a hammer in his fist. The crimson flames flashed against the sweat on his body and his body was darkened by the soot of the flames. He ceased his pounding and wiped the moisture from his brow, turning away from the heat, towards the person that due to the ringing of the hammer he did not know was there.

"Hello," Antony turned is head to look at Lucian. He was leaning against a large, wooden beam a few feet away from him, just looking.

Lucian growled a little under his breath but continued working his eyes not leaving the visitor of his haven. "What do you want?" he said gruffly not bothering with any cordial foreplay.

"To speak with you," he said not moving away from where he was standing. Antony brushed some of his dark, wavy hair away from his face his eyes never wavering from Lucian's face. Lucian did the same as he moved about the room. Antony moved along with them, and together they moved in a circle, both staring at each other as they spoke.

"Do you hate them?" asked Antony still moving in perfect sync with Lucian.

"Who?" asked Lucian.

"Your masters."

Lucian let out a more audible growl. "They are not my masters."

Antony raises an eyebrow. "But you do hate them. All of you hate all of them."

Lucian exhaled sharply through his nose but he did not say anything.

"Silence," said Antony, "interesting."

Lucian snarled at him, his white teeth bared at Antony, the latter unfazed by his actions. "I'll take my leave," he said as if he were the one that decided to end the conversation. He turned on his heels and glided towards the door. The young man passed a horse and as he did so the horse suddenly screamed and reared its hooves lashing out at Antony as it desperately tried to get away from him. Antony paused in his exit and turned its gaze on it. The horse screamed again and strained against its restraint even more, the wood splintering against its holding.

Lucian lunged forward to stop the animal from escaping. Antony moved away as Lucian came forward. By the time Lucian reached the horse it has already calmed. Lucian ran a precautionary hand through the beast's thick mane and skeptically watched Antony's receding form as it walked towards the castle.

Dawn came, and with that dawn came a day, and with that day came an evening. As the sun fell from the sky and the protective shadows lengthened Sonja slipped from her room and Lucian was released from his cell and in the twilight hours they met in their secret niche. They lay on the ground together in the gathering darkness and watched the final blood red rays of the sun fade behind the mountains.

Lucian turned to Sonja and stroked her hair, his fingers barely tracing her scalp. He rested his forehead on the nape of her neck and closed his eyes wearily letting out a long sigh.

Sonja reached back and took his hand pressing it to her full lips. He smiled into her skin at the touch. "Something is troubling you," she said.

Lucian sighed and got up from his position on the ground on walked to the edge of their niche and looked down over the castle the small candles winking back up at him, only blotting out if a figure passed in front of it. Sonja got up with him still holding his hand and looked out over her home as well. "Those two trouble me."

Sonja nodded knowing whom he was talking about. "They trouble everyone slightly. They are very strange."

"What are they?" asked Lucian.

Sonja turned her head and looked at her lover with a question in her eyes. "What do you mean?"

"Think about it," said Lucian turning to look at her. "I watch them, the same way that they seem to watch us. I have seen them in sunlight, and it does not harm them; they seem overjoyed by it; thus they cannot be vampire. And they wear no collar; yet the moon does not affect them at all; so they are not lycan. If they are not lycan nor vampire, what are they?"

Sonja sighed and nestled closer into Lucian's chest. "I don't know," she paused. "Do you think they are dangerous?"

"I don't know," said Lucian. His face and voice hardened. "But I don't trust them."

Sonja nodded in silent agreement. Lucian pulled Sonja deeper into his body wrapping his large arms around her frame. Sonja rested her cheek against Lucian's chest and Lucian pressed his face into her dark hair.

Sonja suddenly gasped. "Look," she said urgently.

Lucian followed Sonja's pointed finger and looked at the gate, more importantly the two silver cloaked figures that were quickly and smoothly passing though the small opening in it.

Lucian tensed as he watched them, his arms becoming iron chains around her body. He released her quickly and began to descend from the niche.

"What are you doing," called out Sonja.

"Following them," replied Lucian.

"What are you following them for?"

"Answers."

Lucian practically ran to the forge his purposeful stride the only sound heard in the few minutes before the castle became active. He walked to the back of the forge to a chest well hidden from the eyes of his supervisors. He opened it forcefully and the lid clattered against the wall. Lucian began digging through its contents. He pulled out a sword from a rust colored cloth that it was wrapped in, the blade making a hissing sound as it cut through the silent air. He held it up to his eye to examine the sharpness of the blade.

Lucian heard the same sound close to his ear and he turned sharply to see Sonja already sheathing a sword into her belt. "Sonja-" Lucian began.

"If we meet anyone, you are going to need me to even get beyond the wall."

Lucian couldn't argue with her. He pushed aside everything in his way until he got to the very bottom of the chest. At the bottom lay the small bronze key that he crafted to rid himself of his shackle should the need, or opportunity, arise. He grabbed it and slipped it into a pocket. Sonja saw the action.

"Do you think that you will need that?" Sonja asked.

Lucian didn't answer her question. "Lets go." He took her upper arm gently and led her out of the forge towards the gate.

Illa and Antony as soon as they had vanished into the security of the woods beyond the castle walls they turned into their forms and ran relishing the rare freedom that was the time to use their power without fear of discovery. Quickly and simultaneously as if they had unconsciously shared the thought they phased into a more lupine form, going down onto all from limbs and going much faster than they previously were. For a time thy just ran, flexing the muscles of their legs and feeling the cool, crisp night wind whipping against their face.

They calmed after about an hour phased back to a more human shape and loped along on two legs side by side, their bruise colored skin and dark hair shining from the light of the moon, nether of them knowing that Lucian and Sonja were following them, and Sonja and Lucian unaware of what creatures they pursued.

Illa and Antony reached a meadow in the woods. They stopped running and reverted back to their entirely human shape. Gracefully they undid the cloaks that were flying out behind them like capes during all the run save for when they were in the most wolf-like form.

Their faces became serious and solemn as they stood side by side in the middle of the field. They closed their eyes and for many minutes they were perfectly still. Then suddenly they opened their eyes and the strange, otherworldly glow came from them. At the same moment they spoke in an unnaturally guttural voice. "Talia," they whispered.

Talia appeared before them his body a form of shiny, silvery mist. His eyes glowed as well. "Children," he said. His voice sounded soft and very far away. "You seem distressed."

"We don't know what to do," said Illa quickly. "We don't know when to intervene. We don't even know its origin."

"I see," said Talia.

"Forgive us," said Antony, "for our failure in our mission form the Hierarchy."

"You have not failed," said Talia, "the war has not started, but it is brewing, and will come soon, and there will be an opportunity which you must know to take." His wispy voice drifted off into silence, his eyes drifted away from Illa and Antony's faces towards the woods. "I shall leave now," in a sow fluid motion he brought his eyes back to the pair. "You are no longer alone." As quick as he had come he vanished back into oblivion just in time for the duo's sensitive ears to pick up the rustling of feet on the forest floor.

Lucian and Sonja had been tracking Illa and Antony for many minutes before they heard three voices, two very low and the other was very a whisper. They followed the sounds of the conversation. The closer they got to the voices they saw a strange light in front of them. They reached the edge of a clearing the light shined in the center of the field and there were two figures enveloped by it. Lucian leaned forward trying to discern the figures unaware that he was upsetting the ground with his feet.

The light suddenly vanished and the two figures turned towards them swiftly. When Sonja and Lucian's eyes adjusted to the sudden absence of he eerie light they saw two creatures in the middle of the meadow. Blue skin, obsidian eyes, hackles raised, snarling and salivating at the sight of them. Sonja gasped and skittered back a few feet, having seen these creatures before. Lucian didn't pause after that. With one hand he pushed Sonja behind him and with the other he dived into his pocket for his liberation. He jammed the brass into the hole in the iron and wrenched the collar off his neck. Lucian snarled back and leapt into air turning into his lycan form as he did so. He landed lithely on his front paws and charged, canines bared, into the clearing.

The creature closest to him, the larger one, took up his challenge, and sprinted towards his opponent, his speed rivaled, if not eclipsed, Lucian's. The two wolf like immortals met. The creature leapt far above the lycan's head, its clawed hand reaching in sweeping arc towards the muscles in the lycan's neck. But Lucian dodged the blow and grabbed the creature's back lack as it attempted to finish its leap over him. He twisted his neck with the leg still ensnared in his mouth and the creature was jerked out of its fight landing on the ground with a resonating thud. The creature was also undeterred and twisted its back to reach around and clamp its jaws of the lycan's shoulder.

The smaller creature stalked the other two waiting for a moment to join the fray. It heard off to the side the side the sound of metal scraping across leather. It tuned its head and saw Sonja burst from the tree line, drawing her sword, sprinting towards the clashing beasts.

In three bounds it blocked Sonja's path towards Lucian and the thing that was trying to tear him to pieces. Sonja hisses her eyes turning to the electric shade as she raised her weapon above her head.

The animal stopped, it stopped moving, stopped growling, stopped everything. Its back eyes stared at Sonja, analyzing every aspect. Out of the corner of its eye it glanced at the lycan and its comrade a few yards away to their left.

In the motion of completely facing the fighters, Illa turned back to her normal form. "Antony!" she cried out, "Antony, stop!

But Antony did not hear her. His free back leg was scratching at Lucian's belly while Lucian was clawing deep marks across his back, neither refusing to release the respective limb they held in their jaws.

Sonja lowered her weapon and looked at Sonja and the creature now named Antony. "Lucian!" she shouted and both began screaming at their companions to prevent them from killing each other.

Antony kicked Lucian in the stomach, launching him into the air causing Lucian to release Antony's leg and Antony likewise with Lucian's shoulder. Lucian twisted in the air and landed on his feet and Antony rolled over onto his feet, both preparing to attack again.

"No!" Seizing the moment Illa and Sonja ran to the two, Illa standing in front of Antony blocking his way, Sonja wrapping her arms around Lucian's midsection.

"Antony, Antony, listen to me," said Illa urgently, "It's only Sonja and Lucian, there's no danger." Sonja was whispering similar things rapidly into Lucian's ear.

Both men turned back into their human forms, both seething, shooting daggers into the other's face.

Antony was the first to calm, his face along with Illa's fell back into that expressionless manner they both possessed. They stood before Sonja and Lucian, Illa standing in front of Antony, as if the last few minutes had not happened.

"Why are you out here?" demanded Lucian.

"We could ask you the same thing," replied Antony.

Lucian shrieked in frustration and took a step forward, murder written on his face. Sonja stopped him again cinching her grip around him. "Please," she whispered.

Illa's face flickered for a moment and she looked up at Antony. Antony looked down at her and for a few seconds they had a silent conversation with their eyes. Finally Antony let out a deep, long sigh and nodded at her.

Illa turned her attention back to Sonja and Lucian. "What do you wish to know?" she asked.

"Who are you," said Lucian forcefully, "what are you?"

Illa chuckled slightly, amused with something. "You can let go of him Sonja," she said, "your arms will get tired."

Sonja released him and Illa looked at Lucian. "Our names are Illa and Antony, but that much you know. The irony is, that is mostly how much we ourselves know, as well."

Lucian huffed again, "speak plainly woman."

"Forgive my sister," said Antony, "it is our way, it is the only way we have ever known."

"Then let me ask," said Sonja stepping around Lucian, "where are you from, and why are you here?"

"Ahh," said Antony, "now those we can answer." He turned and looked towards Illa who then took up the conversation.

"To start with, you must know what we are, or what little we know of what we are. My brother and I are, at least what the Hierarchy call, the unborn. Those unborn are creatures that were conceived, but died before they were born. We are dead, but you cannot die if you were never born, so we belong to both worlds, and neither at the same time."

"Who are the Hierarchy?" asked Lucian.

"The Hierarchy," continued Illa, "are the five that sent us here, the five that rule the Shadowlands, that five that gave us our purpose in this world."

"What is your purpose here?" whispered Lucian.

"To stop a war between the vampires and the lycans that Viktor will start very soon."

Lucian and Sonja were stunned, but amazingly they believed them. "A war," whispered Sonja.

"Yes," this time it was Antony who spoke. "A very great, and very long war. A war that, according to them, wastes many lives needlessly. We were sent on behalf of the Hierarchy to stop it as subtly and as smoothly as possible."

"Why could the Hierarchy not do it?" asked Lucian.

"The Hierarchy," said Illa, "belong entirely to the Shadowlands. We belong half there, and half here. They feared their powers would be to foreign for this world and they might inadvertently destroy it, so they sent us, the more…domestic option."

Lucian was about to ask another question but Antony cut him off his eyes locked onto the sky. "Dawn comes in a few hours," he said.

Three sets of eyes flew to the set that was vulnerable to sunlight. "Come," said Illa walking towards the protective covering of the trees, "you can continue interrogating us on the return journey."

Sonja walked with Illa and Antony walked with Lucian, the women a few meters ahead of the men. "I sense a question on your lips Sonja," said Illa suddenly, after her statement actually looking at whom she was addressing.

"How do you know that Antony is your brother when you know not of your life that would have been in this world?"

"When he and I materialized in the Shadowlands, we unconsciously knew that we shared the same womb, at the same time."

"So you are twins," said Sonja.

"Yes," Illa replied.

Sonja paused trying to form the question on her lips as nicely as possible. "Do you…do you…"

"The Hierarchy," breathed Illa, "thought it was best if we did not know who are parents are so that we wouldn't abandon our mission to go find them. We don't know their names, their faces, we don't even know if they are alive."

"That's horrible."

"That is how it is." But Sonja caught the straining composure in Illa's voice.

Lucian turned to look at Antony to find that Antony was already looking at him, waiting. "Did this Hierarchy mention anything more about the war?"

"They told us when they summoned us that Viktor is the key, the small stone that would start the avalanche. I don't believe they know anymore than that, their powers do not work that way. They told us to seek him out and get close to him and all the people that he is close to, and find the reason so that we may do our intervention based on the reason."

"Did they tell you…who would be killed if you fail?"

"No," Antony looked at Lucian who was staring at Sonja's back, "you worry for your people, because they look up to you."

Lucian nodded silently.

"And…" Antony continued, "you worry for the Lady Sonja…because you love her."

"Very much," Lucian replied his eyes not leaving Sonja thinking about the danger she may soon be in.

Both pairs joined in a single group and continued on in silence reaching the gates a few minutes before before the sun was expected to rise. Lucian pushed open the gates and Sonja screamed at the sight of the person who waited in the middle of the courtyard. "Tanis!"

Lucian sucked in his breath and both Sonja and Lucian looked at Illa and Antony, who were not looking at Tanis at all, but looking at who Tanis was looking at. "Urios," they whispered.

Urios walked towards Tanis, appearing before them as Talia had done however he seemed more…there, than Talia had been.

"Illa, Antony," he said pleasantly looking at the two of them. His eyes lingered on Sonja and Lucian for a moment. "Children," he said commandingly, "on behalf of the Hierarchy, I have come to take you back to the Shadowlands."

* * *

Every one say cliff hanger!!

P.S Happy Valentine's Day


	6. Severed

Chapter Six: Severed

Illa and Antony didn't respond immediately to Urios' statement. Their pale glass-like eyes slowly flickered between Urios, Sonja and Lucian, and each other. "Urios," said Illa diplomatically deadpan, cautiously stepping forward. "We do not understand. We have not yet accomplished what the Hierarchy, you, have sent us to do."

"Regardless," said Urios, unfazed, not even blinking, "I have been sent by the others of the Hierarchy to bring you back."

"On what-" but Antony cut his sister off. He stepped forward towards Urios. Lucian did not miss the way Antony angled himself in front of Illa. His eyes flashed towards the strangers named Urios, and stealthily followed Antony's silent advice and moved himself in font of Sonja.

"You were sent by the Hierarchy," said Antony his calm voice masking whatever he was implying, "as in, all of you participated in this decision."

"Yes," responded Urios pleasantly, "of course, as always."

"Liar," hissed Antony. Sonja and Lucian were both amazed at the drastic change in his character, how quickly it had gone from compliant to conflictive.

Illa took a long look at Antony before whipping her bad to Urios. "He is right," she said casually, "That was the reason we were out, you see. My brother and I had a little chat…with Talia. Strange, that he would have not told us then that we were being summoned back, or that he was even there at all, and not voting for our return." Illa's voice had drifted into an accusing tone, mirroring Antony's.

Urios' face flickered from a blank slate, a sign to all present that he was unaware of Talia's visit. Both Illa and Antony fell into a fighting stance, both hissing at the council member, their impending change rippling their skin.

"Fine," said Urios smartly. He widened his stance a little, bracing himself. He let his head fall back so that his head was staring at the sky. His arms were at his side, but they were stiff, palms open and forward, fingers tensed and curled slightly. He opened his eyes and they glowed with a stark, white light and he exhaled a breathy sigh. Out of his back erupted a large set of wings. They were dark and leathery, each tipped with a long and foreboding looking spike. "But I'm still bringing you back."

Illa and Antony turned.

Urios maneuvered the spikes like a set of spears and thrust them forward so that they crossed each other and formed a snare around Illa and Antony. As he drew them back, both Antony and Illa rolled out from underneath them avoid the action that would have pinned both of them to Urios' chest. Illa and Antony were each at a diagonal to his front in a crouch, black eyes shining with rage, white teeth bared at their assailant.

Urios turned towards Antony and leaned forward, thrusting the spikes towards him. Antony leapt high into the air, the spikes embedding into the ground with a crack in the stone and the thud of the dirt beneath the street.

Illa, at the moment of Urios' lunge, dived towards Urios' feet. With a sweeping motion of her ebony clawed hands she clawed at his right ankle, upsetting his balance. Urios twisted around to regain his footing and Antony became positioned diagonally behind him and Illa was directly in front of him, his left talon poised above her head.

Urios was about to bring it down when Antony came down form the air, his jaws clamping over the deadly spike, wrenching it away from his sister.

Antony in his fall pulled the talon with him, making Urios fall in his back. Illa sprang nimbly up on her feet and latched onto Urios' right wrist, which he had flung out in front of him because of the force of Antony's blow.

Urios howled, his rage fueling him. When his back hit the ground, his arm extended above his head with Illa still attached to it, Antony to his left, his left wing in his clutches, he pulled his feet back towards his head so that his body formed a backward C. He put his feet against Illa's shoulders and pushed her off his wrist with so much force she was thrown back a few feet, landing on her feet in front of Sonja and Lucian.

Urios then turned his attention to Antony. While still in his backward C position, he wrenched both wings towards where his feet would be if he were standing upright. The action sent Antony sliding across the ground, the rough stones cutting up his back. When Urios' talons stopped the whiplash motion, the momentum sent Antony flying, forcing him to relinquish his grip. He rolled violently across the ground before finally becoming still and gingerly picking himself up.

Urios used his wings like a spring and righted himself, Illa directly to his right, Antony the same to his left. The entire exchange took about twenty seconds.

Lucian growled and leapt forward to change but Illa saw what he was intending to do and stuck out a hand to stop him.

"No," she cried turning back into her human form so she could communicate. "You can't. Look!" She pointed up at the sky. Sonja and Lucian both looked up and saw the rosy, pink fingers of morning coming over the wall. There was no moon for Lucian to turn by, and Sonja was in legitimate danger by the sun. Both vampire and lycan were completely helpless.

A patch of sunlight spilled over, illuminating the place where Illa was standing. Sonja yelped and scuttled backwards towards the shadowy sanctuary of the wall. Lucian backed up with her, covering her body with his own.

Urios grinned at the window Illa's exposed back whilst she was talking to Lucian, unturned and vulnerable, had opened. He swung his left talon at her.

Before anyone could cry out a warning, and before Illa could even register the threat, the spike impaled her left shoulder and pulled her sharply to the right.

Time seemed to pause, for all of them, at what they saw. Illa at the impact immediately turned, but at Urios' pull she remained where she was, yet Urios felt a large mass being carried and flung off of his talon. Everyone looked at Illa, who was in her normal form again. She seemed to be in a state of shock, unable to move. A moan came from the direction of the mass that Urios had thrown. Everyone's eyes turned there, to see a lycan.

Urios had split, into separate entities, the two species that created a hybrid.

Illa's eyes widened and suddenly she began to scream her body contorting as she fell to the ground, the sun burning her newly sensitive skin.

Antony at his sister's cry moved at last. He ran towards Urios and leapt over him, putting his foot in the place between Urios' shoulder blades to help him over and to get him away from Illa. Antony grabbed her around her torso and began to drag her back away from the patch of light.

Urios grabbed for her, to hold her in the sun. His spikes formed pinchers and he used them to try to grab her foot. Lucian saw this and reached forward to assist Antony, but it didn't matter. Urios' claw passed right through Illa's skin, flesh, and bone, like a ghost, like he wasn't even there.

Lucian and Antony dragged the still screaming Illa into the shadows and Sonja placed Illa's head in her lap to prevent her from thrashing inadvertently into the light again. Antony, in a panic that was close to hysteria, braced a hand on either side of Illa's shoulders and looked at her face.

She did not look back at him. She strained her neck to look sideways, her eyes practically bulging put of her face, her mouth opening and closing in unintelligible sounds as she looked at her lycan form rising of the street. Antony rose from his sister, turned into his hybrid from and ran to the lycan.

Urios stared at the claw the tips if his wings made that lay at the place where they should have captured Illa's foot but failed to do so, a question growing on his face on how that could be. He heard movement behind him and looked behind him. His eyes narrowed and his mouth opened in a hiss. Viktor and his Deathdealers were coming. He turned and looked at Sonja and Lucian with Illa between them for a moment then out of the corner of his eye he looked at Tanis cowering in a shadowy corner, conveying a silent message to the coward. He then dissolved into the light that surrounded him and vanished.

Viktor quickly and smoothly descended the stairs that lead from the castle to the courtyard, his Deathdealers at his heels, careful to avoid the ever growing patches if sun form the looming morning. His pale face blanched at seeing Sonja, distress etched into her face, desperately trying to hang onto the thrashing young woman in her lap. "Sonja!" he said alarmed leaving his men, only seeing his daughter and not anyone around her. "My child, what has happened here…" But his voice died in his throat as a bruise colored creature drove a lycan across his path.

Antony circled the beast that was partly his sister, herding it towards her who reached for it desperately. When the lycan Illa came within reach of the vampire Illa a deep and unknown instinct took over the both of them. Illa reached up and grasped the lycan's head and brought a vein in its neck to her mouth and drank from it. The lycan did the same with Illa's shoulder. Each one turned the other into the exact same hybrid; and as easily as Urios had severed them from each other, like two drops of water joining together, so did they.

Viktor's eyes widened at the sight of the vampire and lycan feeding off each other, joining in one body, and another hybrid looking on. He bared his teeth at the two. "Abominations," he hissed. His raised his had and summoned his Deathdealers, in the same motion he pointed an accusatory finger at the pair. "Arrest them," he ordered.

Four Deathdealers approached the two hybrids, one lying unconscious in the arms of the other. Two placed their hands on Antony's shoulders and the other two made to pull Illa form his grasp. Antony howled and turned for a split second turned into his hybrid form and back again clutching his sister tightly to his chest. The two Deathdealers that tried to retrieve Illa jumped away from the irritable man and instead flanked the other two at Antony's sides.

"My lord," said Lucian taking a beseeching step towards Viktor. "Please, they-"

Viktor was not looking at Lucian's face, what he was looking at turned his face into a vision of fury of which Lucian had never before seen. Quicker than sight, Viktor had Lucian in a chokehold, lifting him a few centimeters off the ground. "Lucian," Viktor ran his thumb over Lucian's bearded cheek, his voice sickeningly sweet. "What do I _not_ feel around your neck?"

Lucian gasped as he recalled what was not on his neck, what was presently lying on the forest floor miles and miles away.

Viktor dropped him, but before Lucian's feet could touch the ground Viktor struck him hard across the face making him land on his side, his lip bleeding. Viktor leaned down over him. "You will pay for this defiance," he said quietly. Then he spoke more loudly. "Arrest him with the other two." Two Deathdealers suddenly flanked him and hauled him off the ground. The other four did the same with Antony and Illa.

"Father," said Sonja while they jerked the prisoners onto their feet, approaching her father quickly. "Father stop, this isn't fair!"

"Enough!" screamed Viktor. His voice ricocheted off the walls with such gusto everyone present stilled, looking at father and daughter. Viktor leaned in very close to Sonja's face. "You will not plea for their freedom. Not to me, not to the council, not to anyone. You will not do anything unless I say so. Your liberty has become most taxing, and now, it is no more. Do we understand each other, my dear?"

Sonja didn't dare move. She looked at her father waiting. She slowly turned her eyes so she could see Lucian's face. He looked at her and very subtly nodded once. "Yes, father," she said weakly, feeling as if she were abandoning Lucian and his troubles.

"Good," he said with strained pleasantry, "now come inside." He turned knowing full well that Sonja would follow. She did, all the while looking back and the trio that were being pulled underground.

"Tanis!" Viktor called out, somehow knowing that he was there, "Bring your spineless self less the sun take you."

Tanis darted from his dark hiding spot and followed his master and his daughter into their domain.

Tanis followed the silent pair until he turned down a side passage to reach his own room. Urios was already waiting there when he opened the door.

"Well," said Urios.

"She lives, my lord."

Urios sharply exhaled through his nose the question weighing on his mind.

"My lord," said Tanis, "what just happened?"

"I think it would be fairly obvious, I have the ability to divide a hybrid into the two original species that created it."

"Why were you not able to touch her afterwards."

"Because I am not here, and they, however temporarily, are. It seems that the living must destroy them once I destroy their indestructibility. How interesting."

"But what of Sonja and Lucian?" asked Tanis, "They have seen you, they may expose you."

But Urios no longer paid attention to him. Sonja and Lucian. Their parents. What were the children doing with the parents alone beyond the wall for hours? What had Talia told them?" "They are bonding regardless," he thought to himself, "They may very well discover who they are. I cannot risk them knowing. I cannot risk them running off."

He smiled to himself. "Maybe its time for my own intervention."

"Tanis," he said aloud interrupting whatever Tanis had been saying. "Sit down. I'm going to tell you a story." He smiled again a mad glint in his eye.

"A love story…"

* * *

Oh Urios is evil and I'm sure a lot of you want to hit him right about now! A note about his wings- I wasn't really sure how to write them but they sort of look like Markus' wings in Underworld Evolution if you want a visual example. If you haven't guessed the Hierarchy used to be vampires and or lycans and now since they are dead when they "come back" they are really powerful if they choose to be both in expected (wings) and unexpected (split) ways

Review Please-the more you do the faster I write.


	7. Gone

Chapter Seven: Gone

Constance gasped at what she saw from her window, her pale eyes widened, her jaw dropped, her long pale fingers clutched the stone opening in the wall. Three sets of eyes smoothly but quickly turned in her direction. She leaned out her window, gazing in horror out over the plain. "They have been arrested. All four of them." Constance visibly shuddered her small, frail frame. "Viktor knows. He knows about Sonja and Lucian."

Sharine opened her mouth in a silent scream, clasping her temples with open, claw like hands, her eyes screwed shut. "Urios!" she screamed. Talia and Darius turned their heads to the center of the room where Urios was already standing.

"You called, Sharine," he said as though he were bored.

Sharine sharply turned her head towards Urios, her face grief-stricken. "I sense their pain, I sense their deaths looming over them." She gasped clutching her head, her head snapping back towards the ceiling. She whipped it forward again to look at him. "I sense your betrayal!" She cried out, practically weeping. Weakly, she stumbled back into her chair, slowly rocking her upper torso back and forth, her long fingers splayed out upon her scalp, overwhelmed.

Talia who had his colorless eyes locked on Sharine stiffly turned his gaze to the being standing in the center of the hall. "What have you done?" he whispered.

"I believe it was Tanis who told the story to Viktor," responded Urios, "not I."

"But you were the one who told the story to Tanis," countered Darrius, ever the voice of reason, "and you know how the story ends. Sonja will die, and Lucian will build an army to fight in the war Viktor created with her death." He paused and, if possible, he grew more somber. "She is carrying them now, you know. You've condemned the children as well."

"I did not reveal Illa or Antony, or their relationship to Sonja and Lucian, to Tanis. They are unborn, and so they shall remain, returning to us completely unscathed."

Talia just looked at him. "Why Urios…why have you done this to them?"

Urios put on a face of innocence. "Oh Talia," he said with mock humility, "are you distraught that I foiled your little plan?"

Talia raised an eyebrow and looked at him. "I know not what you mean."

"Illa and Antony," said Urios, "your little pets, and the happily ever after you had planed for them. Uniting the lost children with their parents." Urios hissed and took a step closer pointing at Talia who sat in his chair. "You planned this from the beginning. You knew Sonja and Lucian would be there, and that is why you insisted on them."

"I insisted on them," Talia breathed sharply, "because they were the ones most fit."

Urios rolled his eyes. "They were the ones most fit, he says," addressing the council. "They were the ones most fit. They, the ones who had to seek you out on what to do, because they had no idea." Urios eyes snapped to Talia's, whose eyes now were tinted with the color if anger. "Tell me Talia," goaded Urios. "What did you say to your little playthings when they came clamoring to your feet. Did you with your all-seeing power direct them on every step to take, promising them life if they succeed with their parents they are too incompetent to discover for themselves?"

Talia stood up fast and like a wind he was inches in front of Urios. "I do not know what choices they will make to end the war, even if they will end the war now, thanks to you. But I do know this, for it has been etched in the children since the moment of their existence. If they discover who their parents are, they will live."

"Much to your disappointment, Urios." Urios turned his head towards Sharine; her eyes snapped open the moment his head stopped moving. "I sense your jealousy as well, brother dear," she whispered.

"Jealousy?" asked Darrius. "Is that it Urios? Are you jealous that Illa and Antony might live?"

Urios didn't respond.

"You are!" Darrius exclaimed, "You're jealous that they have the chance to live. That they won't be…what was your word…shackled…to this place."

Urios breathed deeply. "They have lived in the Shadowlands. It defies nature for them to return to the other world."

Darrius stood up but did not approach Urios as Talia had done. "Their very existence defies nature. They are loopholes. They are exceptions. How could you force them to continue this half-life they have? Outcasts in both worlds. How can you deny them a place in one?"

Urios looked at Darrius. "Very well then Darrius. You are right, as usual. I will give them a place in a world. This one. Even if I must drag them back myself."

Talia's eyes widened and a look of urgency crossed them. "Urios, no, you don't know what you are doing!" he said.

"Oh yes I do," responded Urios, "getting out from under your feet. Farewell."

Urios turned and by the time his back faces Talia's he had already dissolved.

Talia was in a panic. He turned to the window. "Constance," he screamed, "draw him back!"

Constance turned from the window, her eyes sad, eyes that were unable to bear what she could see. "I can't," she murmured, "he's gone."

Talia collapsed on the ground, curling up into a ball, his hands clutching his chest, the mask on his face shattering to reveal inconsolable grief. He closed his eyes and screamed. "Look what you've done!"

* * *

Yes people that it Urios' motive... jealousy! Tell me what you think of that! Sorry for the short chapter again but you know how these Shadowland chapters go. Answer some question and dish out ten times more lol. Review!


	8. Scent

Chapter Eight: Scent

The prisoners were thus divided. Lucian was sitting with his back against the rough, stone wall, staring blankly ahead at the bars. Sonja was in the cell to his right, her arm reaching through the bars, lying on the ground next to Lucian's knee, looking at him. Illa and Antony were in the cell to the left. Antony was sitting in the center of their cell, his string arms still locked around the limp form of his sister who was resting from her split, her head weakly collapsed against into his chest.

Antony looked to his left. A rumble came from there, from above and beneath as well. The lycans growled at the creatures in the cell, the unknown aliens to their world, the unheard blend. Antony curled back his lips and snarled right back at them, his eyes darkening towards that black pit of adrenaline and aggression. Antony tucked Illa even more securely into his embrace.

Lucian exhaled a sharp breath and stared over at the quivering masses that were squaring each other off. "Enough," he said loudly.

All noises from the lycans stopped and their eyes smoothly drifted over to Lucian.

"Leave them," he said more softly, but still commanding.

The lycans' forms still rippled even though their collars prevented them from turning, their eyes moving between Lucian and Antony before receding into the shadows.

Antony watched them until the darkness completely enveloped them before twisting his neck to look back at Lucian. He nodded his head in gratitude and Lucian returned it.

"Illa," whispered Sonja, her face pressed in between the bars. "Are you hurt?"

Illa raised her head off Antony's chest and unfolded herself from his grip. She stood up and slowly swayed over to the bars before sitting down again by them, Antony sitting down just behind her, a precautionary hand on her shoulder. Illa shook her head at Sonja. "No, I'm not hurt."

"What do you think happened," asked Lucian.

"We told you," said Illa, "the Hierarchy's powers are very strange to this world. Urios apparently could split the two halves of me, I think, it is news to us that we even have halves."

"But he couldn't touch you afterwards," pointed out Lucian.

Illa looked at Antony. "Maybe because he doesn't belong to this world as much as we do. It is the check to his power, to divide us but otherwise not harm us."

"Strange is your world," mused Lucian.

"Yes," responded Antony, "but the unfamiliar is often the strange."

Lucian nodded.

"What happens now?" asked Illa.

Sonja looked away, suddenly finding the stone by her head very interesting. "I don't know," she whispered, but her tone spoke otherwise.

Lucian reached over and slipped his hand through the bars. Sonja looked up into Lucian's face. She saw upon it his shattered hope, or perhaps he was merely mirroring what he saw on her face.

Lucian pressed himself to Sonja's cell, her forehead resting on his shoulder. "Sonja," he whispered, "I have lived under Viktor long enough to know what he will do." He looked into her eyes. "You have to leave, you have to get out."

Sonja pressed her hands between the bars and took his face in her hands. "I would not leave you."

Lucian's face twisted up in his grief, the grief at the knowledge that Viktor would destroy Sonja and himself for their tryst, the grief at the knowledge that that there was virtually nothing that Lucian could do to prevent it.

"Lucian," she murmured, stroking his face, "think of it no more, don't twist our end so it will lay upon yourself." She reached out and ran her hand over one of the thick, dark bars, "I choose this," she returned his hand to his cheek, "I chose us."

Lucian brought his hands up to hers on his face and ran the pads of his thumbs across her ridges of knuckles. He let out a long, weak, watery sigh. "I love you," he murmured, "but I don't know if that is enough to give you any comfort."

Sonja looked at him and leaned as far as she could into his chest. "Just hold me, and that is enough

Lucian wrapped his arms around her waist and Sonja wrapped hers around his shoulders, gently stroking the nape of his neck. No more words were exchanged between them.

Across the cell Illa and Antony stared at the other's, death's masks breaking away to reveal the child-like wonder at seeing the silent pair comforting each other in the hour of their judgment before the inevitable purgatory caused by the paradise of their love being discovered, without a word reaffirming that love. Illa and Antony simultaneously smoothly turned their faces to their siblings, their wide, glassy, almost expressionless eyes communicating silently in their own way. Antony's eyes flicked over to Sonja and Lucian before flicking back again. He tugged on Illa's waist and drew themselves away from the pair towards the front of their cell.

The foreboding rumbling thunder that was the pounding of feet drew all four of the prisoner's attentions to the door. Four Death Dealers stormed in, walking with grim determination towards Sonja's cell. Two entered the cell and Sonja's grip tightened around his shoulders.

Sonja's revelation of fear drove Lucian into a frenzy. He roared at them, the sound pulsating thorough the room. His open mouth revealed his elongating teeth, his eyes evolving into the electric shade, the growing claws standing out sharply against her pale skin.

The two remained unfazed by his threats and grabbed at Sonja, pulling her out of the cage made with Lucian's arms. "Lucian," she called out softly as they pulled her through the door.

Lucian yelled and leapt off the ground and ran to the front of his cell. He reached out his arm and wrapped it around Sonja so that his shoulder was pressed to a bar in his and it wrapped around Sonja's waist his hand curled around a bar of Antony and Illa's so that Sonja's body was pinned at the division between the two cells.

Antony snapped his head up at the woman's waist, two inches away from his face but Sonja shook her head telling him not to intervene as the solders and Lucian fought for her.

Lucian grabbed her face with his other hand and pressed his mouth roughly against hers, defiantly kissing her, and also desperate for one last touch.

"You dog!" cried out one of the vampires pulling at Sonja more forcefully till after several seconds she was finally peeled away from the bars and drug out the doors of the prison.

"Lucian," she called out, her restrained arms trying to reach out to him, "Lucian!"

Lucian's eyes widened and his knuckles whitened on the bars. He screamed at the closed door, his muscles bulging from his neck, his form shifting and molding into the lycan within him. The other two Death Dealers sprung then, puling him backwards towards another exit, binding him with silver chains as they did so, all the while Lucian still screaming.

Illa watched as Lucian was taken away. The door closed with and clang and once again there was silence in the hole. Silence…except for the sound of heavy breathing.

Illa turned and looked over at Antony who was standing ramrod straight pressed to the bars. His nostrils were flared and his eyes were wide in reaction to the scent. Illa stood and walked over to him, but even her touch on his shoulder did not relieve his tension. "What is it, what do you smell?"

Antony stiffly turned towards his sister. His face looked as if it had been violently struck. "Us," he said in a guttural whisper.

Illa looked at him questioningly and looked through the bars towards the door. Suddenly the hand that struck Antony doubled back to Illa when she fully understood the meaning of Antony's words. Antony smelled themselves when his face was inches from Sonja's waist…womb.

Illa's jaw dropped and she snapped her head back to Antony's whose rigid jaw line confirmed her epiphany.

They stared at each other, stunned.

They turned into their hybrid forms and began battering down the bars.

* * *

This is probably the last short chapter you will ever see in this story.

Sorry this took so long. School.

Review please!


	9. Intervention

Chapter Nine: Intervention

The silver chain's chaffed Lucian's wrists that were tethered a foot from the floor. His back was arched forward at a sharp angle, the muscles in his arms screaming in protest, but he did not care about his arms. All he cared about was the woman her loved being strapped to a stake in the middle of the floor by her father.

Viktor lowered his arms from where he had just latched Sonja's wrist high above her head. He looked at her, his face did not flicker an emotion but his eyes that looked deep into his child's eyes held all the anger, betrayal, and grief over the actions of both his and her making. He reached out one of his pale hands and ran two of his long fingers in the raven locks of Sonja's hair hanging above her shoulder.

Lucian snarled and lurched forward, the sliver chains restraining him…burning him, the gashes that striped his back from his tormentor's silver whip tearing open even more from the effort. "Don't touch her!" he screamed at Viktor's back. Lucian couldn't bear the knowledge that the last person to lay a hand on her would not be him, but _him._

Viktor's slim form stiffened at the lycan's outburst, but he did not give the lycan the satisfaction of turning to face him, of allowing him to hurl his fury and desperation at his face. Instead the stilled fingers in Sonja's tresses drifted over to her pale, smooth face, running over her jawbone, across her lips.

Lucian voiced his outrage again but it only came out as a torment sob as he watched Lucian lean forward to kiss Sonja on the temple.

Sonja jerked away from his touch. Viktor gave pause to that, his lips still slightly pursed form the second they touched her skin. He pulled back slightly, looking at the side of her face, her eyes turned away from him, towards Lucian. "Good-bye, my child," he whispered and with a silent swish of his robes he passed away into the shadows and out of the Death Chamber the door closing with a clang that rang on and on into the silence that followed in with a grim finality.

The silence was only broken by two rhythms of quick breathing, one breathing with pain as he twisted his arms again and again despite the rivers of boiled blood seeping over his hands trying to escape his manacles. The other breathed in panic as her eyes rooted to the door in the ceiling, a door that in a matter of minutes would open and allow her death to enter in all of its bright and fiery glory. She shuddered at the thought. She had seen vampires die in the way she was about to, heard their agonized screams as they thrashed around in their final moment of life, their beautiful pale skin becoming ash before vanishing all together leaving a mangled, charred corpse in its wake in a matter of seconds. Their screams echoed in her mind, her own adding to the mix, breaking forth from her tight lips as she struggled fruitlessly to escape from her bindings.

Lucian sighed weakly as he watched helplessly Sonja shake her body against the wood and metal, her blind panic breaking him more than his beating ever could, all the while her eyes bound to the door in the roof.

"Sonja!" he called out trying to draw he out of her primal fear, back to him, for the last moments they would have together…forever. "Sonja! Sonja, please!"

Sonja jerked herself out of her self-induced trance with death looking at Lucian with wide eyes. They both didn't move; it seemed pointless now.

"I love you," whispered Lucian, there was nothing more he could say.

"I love you," responded Sonja, superfluous words falling silent before they were spoken.

A resonating boom sounded in the room and both sets of eyes unconsciously flickered to the door in the ceiling; their eyes fell back to each other after a second.

"Sonja…"

The bang reverberated again, louder this time.

"Lucian…"

With a final crack the door violently opened…but it was not the one in the ceiling. The door which Viktor had exited from hung on it iron hinges, large splintery chunks carved from the frame. Illa and Antony in their hybrid forms rushing in through the open threshold.

The pair stood catching their breath, as they assessed the situation of the other pair lost for breath. Both pairs snapped their heads up at the rumbling that undeniably came from above their heads as the door in the ceiling began to open shedding dangerous beams of sunlight on either side of Sonja and slowly widening.

Illa and Antony snarled at the door and jolted into action. Illa leapt up with all the force he had into the air soaring above their heads until she landed lightly beside the chains that controlled the levers and pulleys of the opening door. Antony fazed back into his human and stood in front of Sonja, his hands braced on the stake above her shoulders, using his body to shield Sonja from the sun while Illa worked above his head to stop the opening of the door.

"Are you all right," Antony whispered to Sonja trying to ascertain if he covered he enough to prevent the light from hurting her. She did not answer her eyes glued to the ever-widening crack of light, her chest rapidly rising and falling ever time it moved. Antony tried to reach her behind the barrier of her dread. "Mother," he whispered, "look at me."

The motion in Sonja's chest stopped abruptly. Slowly, stiffly, stunned, she brought her eyes down and looked into Antony's glassy eyes and saw the child like wonder and curiosity in them. She looked at his face and saw shadow of a face that was now blatantly obvious. Her own.

"How is it coming Illa," he called out loudly to his sister on the ceiling, his eyes still locked with his mother's.

The chains rattled and screamed in defiance as she wrestled with them. "I can't get it to close," she called out. There was a pause and a particularly loud screech then a series of clicking sounds. She sighed seemingly satisfied. "But I did stop it from opening any further. It would take a lot of force behind a blow to move this now." Illa released her hold on the wall and fell to the ground landing lightly on her feet beside Lucian.

Antony gingerly reached up and undid the manacles that tied Sonja to the stake mindful of the light, and Illa did the same with Lucian mindful of the silver. Sonja's arms dropped and Antony, still being a shield backed her out of the light. He stopped the moment she was out of danger and looked at her, the mother's son breaking out of his stoic expression. Sonja reached up and put her hands on his face examining every aspect about him. Antony sighed, closing his eyes, and leaned into her to touch. After a moment he opened his eyes again.

Sonja whimpered, a small smile forming on her face, realizing at last who stood before her and dropped her hands to his shoulders, pulling him into a tender embrace. Antony hesitantly wrapped his arms around her waist, but the moment her made the connection he could not believe how…right…it felt. How this intense feeling was somehow in his being all along, dormant, until the awakening that was in that simple gesture. He sighed a long sigh, falling into her body, molding himself to her. His head rested in the cradle of her neck and shoulder and his eyes closed as Sonja just held her son.

"Sonja?"

Both of them turned at the sound of Lucian's voice as he walked over to the two of them Illa at his shoulder. Sonja smiled when she saw the female version of Lucian walking beside him, they even carried themselves the same as they traveled across the room together. Illa smiled a knowing smile and Sonja held out a hand to her.

"Mother," said Illa flitted her way towards the outstretched hand. Antony relinquished Sonja to his sister who was as giddy as he was reverent to his mother. Illa wrapped her hands around the middle of Sonja's back her head pressed her face into her collarbone. Sonja kneaded her fingers into her daughter's hair and repeatedly kissed her forehead. Illa laughed and nuzzled her face into Sonja's neck.

Lucian watched the exchange frozen to the ground. He watched Antony as he watched him and with apprehension lacing his steps walking over to him. Antony stopped walking when he was about a foot from him. They stared at each other, deep into their eyes. Antony saw in Lucian's the sister he adored, and Lucian saw in Antony's the woman he loved.

"Father," whispered Antony.

Lucian slowly reached up and ran a hand through Antony's hair, brushing it away from his face. The motion jarred his voice. "I have son…" he said seemingly dazed and delighted by the words his lips uttered.

Antony's hand snapped up and held his father's had by the forearm and held it to his face, his eyes locking with Lucian's

"And a daughter," said Illa gently, pulling away from her mother and walking to the side of her brother and in front of her father. Lucian repeated the action her did with Antony and rested a hand on the side of her face. A smile played across her face and Lucian couldn't help but smile back when he looked at the two faces that proved they were brother and sister, that they were his children, Sonja's children, their children.

Sonja…

His eyes rose and he saw her framed between Illa and Antony's heads. Illa and Antony looked at each other and smoothly parted, Lucian walking through the gate they created.

The solemnity fell upon them like a dark veil as they came to terms with what they had just barely escaped as Lucian walked towards Sonja. Lucian stopped and silently reached a slightly shaking hand forward and ran his hand through her locks and then after a moment he ran his hand over her jawbone and across her lips, erasing Viktor's touch with his own.

Sonja let out a dry sob and fell into his arms desperately kissing him, rolling her mouth against his trying to establish enough contact to convince herself this was real, that she was really her, and they were together. Lucian's frayed emotions collapsed as well. Silent tears fell down his face as he took her as savagely, as passionately, as she took him, wrapping his muscular, bleeding arms around her entire body and pressing it to his. He gasped when he broke their connection, and he somberly placed his head against Sonja's, his eyes closed, breathing lightly through his mouth as they stood their, their hands roaming over the other's body, assessing the other's injuries, assuring themselves it wasn't a desperate mirage, silently comforting each other.

They broke away after several minutes when they heard the door move. They looked over at the door on the wall and saw that Illa and Antony had roughly placed the doors back in their proper positions even though they hung there haphazardly.

"We will hide here until the evening," said Illa returning to her parents, her brother following her, "and then we will leave before anyone notices what has transpired here."

Sonja, Lucian, Illa and Antony sat on the far side of the room from the loosely closed door and watched the sunbeams that slipped through the cracks in the door fade into the evening darkness. Sonja leaned up against Lucian's chest, his hand gently running through her hair as she sat cross-legged on the ground. Her children rested their heads in her lap, their eyes staring blankly up at the fading light, their faces expressionless, eyes meeting now and again in silent dialogue. Illa all the while laced and unlaced her fingers amongst Lucian's fingers on his right hand.

Sonja tensed and a slight tremor passed through her. Her eyes turned electric blue as her head tilted towards the sky. "It is night," she said.

The four of them stood up and began cautiously walking to the door, their senses fanning out, searching for any unwanted presences. When they did not, their pace became swifter. "When we go from here," said Lucian, "we can make our way through the underground tunnels and leave—" But when he lifted open the doors his words died in his throat. Illa and Antony paled.

Urios stood in a casual stance in the doorway, he cocked his head one side, colorless eyes flashing, a sadistic smile painted on his face. "Hello children."

The wings erupted from Urios' back again. He sharply rolled his left shoulder forward and flung his body forward so that his talon was like a javelin. The foursome divided to two on either side of him then merged again as they scrambled under his body and sprinted out the door.

As they ran they heard the pounding echoes of Urios trying to pursue them, but he was lost in the labyrinth of the castle halls that Lucian and Sonja had traveled for centuries. They heard the shrill shattering of glass as Urios leapt through a window, the snap of leather as his wings unfolded, the thump of his wings as he punched himself into the air, and then absolute silence. The silence alone was enough to slow them down, question every corner, jump at every shadow until they reached the main door of the castle. The four of them heaved the heavy wooden doors open and swayed on the spot. Viktor was standing there in the courtyard, but not just Viktor, Viktor with Tanis by his side and an army behind them. Urios' shadow painted on the ground grew larger until he landed gracefully and silently in front of Viktor and Tanis.

"Urios," cried out Illa, a touch of hysteria in her voice, "What are you doing?!"

"Intervention," he growled and lunged forward. They slammed the doors on him and braced their backs against them feeling it tremor from the impact as Urios attacked the doors. "Break it down!" shouted Urios and they heard the rush of wind under his wings as he took to the air again.

The four of them clung to the door, chest heaving as they heard the army move towards the barrier between them.

"What do we do now?" Illa asked, her nails digging into the wood.

"We can't fight them all," said Antony, his eyes flitting around, mind whirling through the possible scenarios, "we need more men."

"Lucian…" whispered Sonja, her eyes wide with an epiphany, "they lycans."

"Lucian looked at Sonja. He then pushed away from the door Sonja's wrist clasped in his hand.

"Lucian, no."

Lucian turned sharply towards Sonja a growl rumbling through his body.

"No one must know what you are doing or you will never make it. I will distract my father to give you time to free them."

"He will follow you…and I will not be there."

"But he will believe you are there, and thus never suspect that you are elsewhere. He knows you would never leave me."

"And he's right," said Lucian taking a step forward. "I would never leave you."

Sonja put her palms to his chest. "Go," she pleaded softly, "you're the only one that can rally them, the only one who can give them the strength to believe that the course of their lives…our lives…could be forever changed…if they are willing to fight for it.

Lucian paused, then in a quick motion before he could change his mind released Sonja to turn and grab Antony's forearm and tow him off into the shadows towards the prison cells.

Sonja and Illa watched them leave until they were out of sight. Sonja let out a long sigh and turned towards Illa. "Let's go," and they dashed off in the other direction.

Father and son glided through the shadows of the endless halls towards the underground den. Not a word was spoken as they ran, both lost in the thoughts of and worries for the women that consumed their lives, the women now that were playing cat and mouse with two of the most great and terrible beings they had ever known.

They reached the iron door that lead to the lycan vaults. Lucian ran his hand over the locked that barred them. He closed his eyes and gave the moon guidance over his body. His eyes opened and the blue in them glowed in the night. He flexed his hand and dark claws elongated from his fingertips. He thrust his hand forward into the door and twisted the lock out with a jerk of his hand. His hand relaxed and it dropped the mangled mechanism. His head leaned back and he let out a breath, his eyes returning to normal, the wolf retracting back into his hand.

The door creaked open to reveal the heart of the pen; there were hundreds. Antony looked around him warily. "They won't trust me so…"

Lucian did not give him the opportunity to finish his sentence because without a pause he strode to the center of the chamber, a lifetime's ambition filling his chest. "Brothers!" he cried out, his voice thundering through every crevice of the cavern. All eyes flew to him, some in shock that he lived, others in reverence, knowing that he would. "Lycans!" He raised his fist; in it was their collar's key. "Your liberty is at hand!"

The sound that followed shook the earth that held them.

Even from a great distance Sonja and Illa heard the sounds of the lycans tearing their bondage from themselves. They paused and turned in the direction of the sound to listen to the music of revolution, of rejoicing.

" 'Chains shall he brake, for the slave is our brother,'" said a cold voice behind them. They turned sharply at the sound of the silver sword being drawn from Viktor's sheath, he pointing the tip at them. "At least until I break them," continued Viktor waking smoothly towards them, "starting with your precious Lucian." He swung the blade in a long arc and they both dodged it. They had no weapons, that was all they could do, glide across the floor and through the air like acrobats as their maestro's deadly baton cut through the air, the sliced air singing the dance of death as Viktor drove the two towards lower ground, towards his army that waited outside.

Viktor guided them to a room just above his men, and just above the underground lake that lead to a shipping entrance in the underbelly of his realm. It was riddled with grates that showed the dark waters beneath their feet. There was no escape from this room save the door they just entered and a balcony, of which a leap from that would end in a thicket of Death Dealer swords. Viktor swung again at Sonja and she attempted to leap to the side, but her doge was short and the blade tore open her shoulder, sending a small spray of blood onto Viktor's face. Viktor licked the crimson liquid from his upper lip and his eyes widened as Sonja's blood memories revealed everything that had transpired in the Death Chamber.

Viktor turned his head towards Illa who stood framed in the opening towards the balcony, his face twisted from a cool aristocrat to heathen. "Impossible," he spat, but he saw the mixed blood of his daughter and her animal blended in Illa's body. Viktor swiped the sword at her midsection causing her to leap back propelling her onto the balcony. She caught the side with her hand to prevent from toppling over into the hoard. In the same motion, Viktor turned his blade to Sonja, murder in his eyes.

Steel crashed against steel, as a sword attached to Lucian's arm shielded Sonja from the side. "You will never touch her again," Lucian hissed.

"You." seethed Viktor darkly.

A rush of wind and a cry that came from the balcony distracted Antony, who was just inside the door.

"Antony!" Illa screamed as Urios dove from the night and with one arm around her body dragged her off the balcony as he plunged towards the ground.

Antony howled at leapt for the balcony, launching himself from it, and landing squarely in the small of Urios' back. The lycans followed him, over the edge and into the army, every fiber of their being clawing for retribution. And the two species clashed, there in the square, muscles rolling and fangs glistening under the silvery moon.

Lucian and Viktor's swords clashed together again and again as they crossed and re-crossed the room, their wills fighting more then their strength. "How dare you, you animal!" screamed Viktor parrying off one of Lucian's blows, "how dare you think you can usurp, after all I have done with you."

"You did nothing," responded Lucian attacking again, "you did nothing but fuel my hate and nearly kill the one I love!"

The blades came together again and the metal grinded and screamed against each other until their fighters were centimeters away from their opponents face. Viktor twisted his face to the side until he was by Lucian's ear. "I should have killed the pup along with the bitch."

Lucian's face blanched as all the air rushed from his lungs. He stumbled backwards slightly, stunned.

Viktor pulled his blade away and kicked out at the lycan, his foot knocking him in the chest and Lucian fell to the ground with a thud. Viktor twisted his blade into a stabbing motion and brought it down in a sharp angle aiming for Lucian's heart.

"No!" Sonja vaulted forward and grabbed the blade with her right hand, cutting herself deeply as she did so, and spun in a tight circle to her left using the hilt that was wrenched out of her father's hand as a club and brutally struck the left side of his face. He fell backwards and landed in the center of a grate, the metal rattling underneath his body. Sonja let the blade slide up her hand until it reached the hilt, nit even wincing as it cut her hand again. The blade was facing backwards away from Viktor but a twist of Sonja's wrist would end it all.

Sonja looked at her father, and he looked at her, neither of their eyes wavering. Viktor wore no anger, no fear, nothing as he looked at his child waiting several seconds for her move. Sonja let out a cry and snapped her wrist bringing the blade forward. It passed over Viktor without even nicking him. Sonja slashed at a chain that suspended the grate above the lake, shattering it, letting her father fall into the water.

Lucian watched numbly as Viktor fell, lost to him with a splash.

Sonja let out a strangled sob, the sword clattered to the floor as she pressed her hands into her face, teetering forward, almost pitching into the water after him. Lucian's arms securely wrapped around Sonja's chest and waist, drawing her back away from the edge. Sonja turned and wept into his chest. "I'm sorry Lucian…I couldn't…I couldn't." Her breath hitched as she spoke.

"Shhh," Lucian soothed stroking her back, "it's alright." He looked over her shoulder at the dissipating ripples down below.

Antony and Illa were knocked around like helpless ships in a tempest as they forced their way through the battle, desperately fighting their way back to the castle, their sanctuary from the sky. Tanis all the while fringed the fighting and every time he saw them Urios dived for them forcing the siblings to take refuge under the feet of the battling immortals. Finally they reached the stone halls and attempted to regroup.

They both heard the footfalls of Tanis as he languidly pursued them. They walked faster, weaving themselves back through the castle. They turned a corner and jolted to a halt. Tanis had somehow managed to get in front of them and was now leaning against a window, idly examining his nails. "You cannot win, you know," he said, his blue eyes snapped up from his nails to them. "I more than anyone else knows that history cannot be changed." He clicked his tongue sympathetically," it is a shame, however that you should…exist…to see your parents die twice."

"Antony, no!" called out Illa trying to restrain him but he paid her no mind as he lunged at Tanis' sly, smirking face with a snarl.

It was then that the trap that Tanis was the bait for was triggered. Tanis stepped back away from the window as Urios leapt through it, glass cutting Antony's face as Urios thrust one of his spikes through the center of his chest. Antony's back arched, his head thrown back in a silent scream, his eyes darkened as he attempted to change, and just like before, when Urios yanked his talon up in a powerful thrust he split the two species that were intertwined in Urios' self. The lycan flew off down the hall away from the remaining, the flight ending with a sickening thud of flesh on stone. The vampire, gasping as if his rib cage had been crushed, crumpled forward into the ground at Urios' feet

Illa took a step forward towards the half of her brother that was curled in front of Urios, trembling as he struggled to regain his breath. Illa tore her darkening eyes from him and turned towards Urios, the ebony flashing on her face. "You can't touch him," she said.

Urios laughed, the hollow sound sending shivers up her skin. His laughter died down to a knowing chuckle before suddenly breaking to a stop. "Presently." Without turning his gaze away from Illa his right hand struck out and wrapped around Tanis' neck.

Tanis' eyes widened to a point where they almost seemed to be bulging form his face; his open mouth uttered a choking sound as if water was filling his lungs. Urios' hand, still in a vice, ran down Tanis' neck, down his shoulder, towards his arm. As he did so Urios and Tanis seemed to fuse, a dead creature coming into a living body. Tanis trembled once and his eyes rolled into the back of his head before Urios completely overshadowed him. Urios' unnatural beauty became twisted and malformed, his new body decaying until he became what could only be called a living corpse. He smiled cruelly at Illa, rivers of saliva dripping from between his jagged teeth, his now pitch black pupils circled with blood colored whites seemed to burn in his twisted face. His gnarled hands brushed a thin strand if his matted grey hair away from his face. He sucked in a deep breath, his skeletal chest expanding. He exhaled a satisfied breath. "Marvelous."

And the screaming started. Illa and the newly made Urios looked out and down through the remnants of the window at the chaos below. Dawn rose over the distant mountains, casting its unforgiving rays on to the battle. The vampires shrieked as they turned to cinders, the victors looking on silently. Urios hissed slightly and stepped away from the light that came in though the window so as not to burn himself now that he was once again a living vampire and inside a vampire's sensitive sin. He paused, and a smile split Urios' face as he watched nature's massacre. He picked up the vampire form of Antony by the nape if his neck.

"No…" whispered Illa, but she couldn't make herself move.

Urios tossed him out the window like he weighed nothing. The sun illuminated Antony's body; he let out a long sigh as his body turned to ash, and shattered alongside the carnage on the stone streets below.

"NO!" Illa ran blindly forward almost leaping out the window after the body of her brother. But Urios caught her mid-air in a scissor hold with his spikes. Urios sharply turned his body and swung Illa with all his force down the hall. Her back slammed into a corner at the end of it. Dazed she tilted her head to the right. She saw a door and recognized the claw marks that she had helped put in it. She was back at the Death Chamber.

Urios slowly walked towards her, the ringing of his feet on the floor sound like an executioner's drum. He flexed his wings behind him, the tips of his spikes scraping the ceiling like fingernails of a chalkboard. He stood ominously above her. "With your brother gone," he said smoothly, "even without my gift," he poised his spikes over her, "you will join him."

He lunged…then faltered. His head snapped back, a gag forcing itself from his throat, canine fangs sunken into his neck. Antony's lycan form twisted his entire body around, dragging Urios with him and flung him through the doors into the Death Chamber.

Urios roared and Illa jumped up and quickly closed the doors desperately trying to hold them shut as Urios slowly dragged them open. A second set of hands joined Illa's. She gasped and looked up into Lucian's face, with his added strength sealing the door even under Urios' bombardment.

Urios screamed at the doors when they wouldn't yield to him. He turned on his heel to the center of the room and wrenched the heavy wooden stake out of the ground, raised it high over his head, and hurled it at the doors. They shuddered, jarring Lucian and Illa on the other side, but they did not give.

But something did give. Urios looked above his head in response to the metallic creaking and shattering of chains, the loosed links flying towards the ceiling, opening the portal to the sun.

Urios screamed and uselessly shielded himself with his arms as his body, along with his life, turned to dust.

Illa heard Urios' final throes of life and then the silence that followed before she weakly fell away from the door, Lucian catching his daughter with his chest. She looked up at the lycan and her eyes widened suddenly. "Antony." She whipped her head over and saw Sonja supporting the whimpering lycan as it leaned against the corner she just vacated. Lucian and Illa scrambled over to the pair. Illa looked at the large hole in his chest. "He can't heal it like this," she sobbed, her body folding in on itself. Antony's dying lycan form sensed his sister's distress and turned his face to her nuzzling his nose into her cheek. Sonja saw a vein weakly pulse in his neck.

Some would call it a hunch; others would call it maternal instinct. Sonja extended her fangs and gently bit her son's neck. Antony's body went rigid air filling his lungs as he slowly fazed back from his lycan form as his father and sister looked on in winder and hope. His eyes darkened, his skin became tinted with a bruise colored blue and for a moment he was in his regained hybrid form before becoming human again. His breathing steadied in his rapidly healing chest. He opened his eyes and looked into Sonja's. "Mother," he whispered.

Illa sighed with relief and rested her head upon the completely healed spot that was Antony's wound.

The united four walked to the main doors of the castle and threw them open, staying just inside the shadows for Sonja's sake, and looked upon the lycans—the free men for the first time in hundreds of years.

"Children," said Sonja, "it just occurred to me. Thanks to your intervention I will be able to carry you now, and, technically, have already carried you." She placed her hand on her abdomen.

Lucian turned to her, his jaw dropping, grasping the meaning of her words. Sonja smiled. Lucian sighed and laughed at the same time a smile on his face and he walked over to her. He placed a hand over hers and drew her into his body, resting his cheek on her forehead and just held her their, keeping their hands over their children.

On the other side of the moment Illa and Antony turned to each other and noticed some things that were not there before. Their eyes had lost their glassy sheen, their way of moving, way of speaking, and even their bodies had somehow become more present in the world.

"We were born," whispered Illa.

They embraced each other when Antony nodded, "We were born."

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I am on bended knee when I say that I am sorry this took so long, but I was struck ill with climaxiphobia (a writer's fear that a story's ending will not be good and cause a backlash of angry and disappointed readers. The only known cure- putting of said climax until self-confidence improves) Please do not hate me for my absence and my ailment, and take note that this is not the last chapter.

Thanx and review or else I will become ill again--perhaps incurably


	10. Remembered

Chapter 10: Remembered

Many months had passed since the intervention and Illa and Antony were walking on the woods together. The sun was glistening on their porcelain skin as their feet softly crushed the autumn leaves below. As they were walking, they realized Talia was walking along beside them.

"Talia," exclaimed Illa, both she and her brother turning towards him.

Talia smiled as if he had been walking by them for a long time. "Children," he said pleasantly, also stopping and turning his eyes towards the pair.

"We wondered if we were ever going to see you again," said Illa.

Talia sighed, his face becoming somber, "There was a time, dear one, when I was, for a moment, unsure of that as well."

All fell silent as the scarred memories and betrayed trust resurfaced form many months ago.

"Talia," sighed Antony, "What happened in the Shadowlands?"

Talia sighed, a small line of his unknowable age showing itself in his forehead as he kneaded his long, spiderlike fingers together. "He was jealous of the potential life you could have. He believed I had arranged it that way. So he forced himself back to this world to take you from it."

There was another grim pause. "What became of him?" asked Antony at last.

Talia looked as if the knowledge gave him a great deal of grief and pain. "He rejected the open arms of the second world and was once again rejected by the first. He does not belong to either world now, so he passed onto the third.

"What world is that?" asked Illa.

"That world is Nothing. And he, along with it, shall be nothing.

Illa sighed, she too not happy at the news either. "Hierarchy is missing its fifth," she stated.

"Another one will be selected when that person comes," responded Talia.

"Was he right?" Talia's eyes smoothly passed over to Antony. "Was Urios right about you arranging this for us?"

Talia winced at the uttering of the name. "It would be very easy for everyone to believe that," he said, "but no. I insisted upon the two of you because you were the most fit to end the war. The love, and the tragedy of that love, which was Sonja and Lucian were the triggers to the war that was created by Viktor with Sonja's death. I chose you because you are their children. As their children you were the only ones that would do anything to save them. Even if it meant defying one of the most powerful vampires in the world. Your grand-father." It was the children's turn to wince. "It was only mere happenstance that the ending of the war would return the two of you to life and would unite a shattered family."

"So," said Illa, "is the war over?"

"You succeeded in stopping the one Viktor would have made if you had not intervened; but he will grow strong again and return for you and your parents. But, for now, yes, you have won your peace."

The three of them heard a rhythmic pounding behind them. A lycan came through the trees, turning human as he did so. "Illa, Antony."

"Yes, Raze," said Antony, turning to the large man, "what is it?"

"You must come with me now. Lucian and the Lady Sonja have some things for you to see."

Antony and Illa's faces sharply snapped towards each other, one dazed, the other delighted. "Talia…" she said in wonder turning towards him.

But Talia was already gone, probably the moment the pair had turned to look at the lycan.

Illa's face fell slightly at the disappearance of the being responsible for everything that had happened, wondering if the past seconds would be the last time they would ever see their mentor. Antony gently laid his upon her shoulder and tugged her in the direction of home. She looked at him and nodded before turning back to the last place Talia was on the plane of this world. "Good-bye."

Antony and Illa followed Raze through the woods back to the castle. They reached the door that was Sonja and Lucian's room. Raze looked at them and opened the door. A pale-faced Sonja was resting on the bed, her body tired but her eyes were bright. Lucian had his back resting on the headboard, his hand braced on the pillow beside Sonja's opposite shoulder, leaning over the three people beneath him; his wife, and the two resting on her chest. Illa and Antony crept to the bed so as not to disturb the newborns. Sonja looked up and smiled, but Lucian only had eyes for the newer forms of his children. Illa and Antony sat down on the bed and looked at the infant versions of themselves as their parents looked on. Illa and Antony pulled back form their small faces framed in Sonja's arms. They looked at each other; a peaceful but resigned smile took over them as well as some seemingly instinctual feeling. "I think it is time for us to go now," said Illa.

That drew even Lucian's face up to them in shock. "What?" he asked.

"Now that we are born," said Illa indicating to the newborns, "we," she pointed at her brother and herself, "are now loose from the chain of time. They will grow up and not need to do anything we have done. We must blend with them or else upset the chain of time by starting our own."

"There is a catch," said Antony, "when we bond with them, we will forget what we are…what we've done, until our timeline and their timeline mesh, when they reach the age we are now. But time is void in the Shadowlands, so that could be many years from now."

Sonja looked down at her children in her arms and her children kneeling on the bed. "This is good-bye?"

Illa and Antony nodded curtly once. "If anything should happen, and we should disappear, we love you," said Illa.

"And we love you," responded Sonja.

The four embraced tenderly and then Sonja held out her children to her children.

Illa sighed nervously, "Take care of us."

Sonja nodded vigorously.

"We'll be waiting for you to come back to us," said Lucian.

"So will we," said Antony.

Illa and Antony touched the tips of their fingers to their younger selves small foreheads. The moment they did there was a sensual flash of light and they were gone. Sonja pulled her children against her chest and she and Lucian looked into Illa and Antony's innocent and wondering eyes, wondering themselves where in the recesses of their mind had they gone.

Many years passed and true to Talia's word Viktor rebuilt his power and struck out against the fledgling family and the society that they were the center of. But the family endured, the parents raising and protecting the children that had unknowingly had been their saviors years before. One day they were in the main hall. Lucian and Sonja were sitting on the steps leaning against the legs of Viktor's vacated chair. They watched Illa and Antony play fight in their hybrid forms like dancers across the shining, black stone. Lucian turned his head and looked at Sonja. He gave a half smile and rested his head against the top of her, interlocking his fingers.

Suddenly Illa and Antony yelped simultaneously and their knees buckled and collapsed, squeezing their eyes shut, mentally forcing themselves back to their normal forms. As quickly as it had come, it was gone. Their faces became still and they opened their eyes. The children slowly turned their heads and looked at their parents as if they had suddenly remembered something very important…

Finis

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Last chapter love it hate review and let me know thanx so much for reading I love you all, stay tuned for my next story BLACK BRIAR (no not bourne related)

PEACE!!!


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